Written Summaries
An Overview
Written summaries involve a brief synopsis of the text read and includes the main points of the text in writing.
Written summaries involve a brief synopsis of the text read and includes the main points of the text in writing.
- Students can summarize a variety of length of sections including sections, chapter, or whole units.
- The length of the summary can also vary. Sometimes summaries will be a couple sentences and sometimes summarizes will be essays. It depends on the length of text and the importance.
- Before the students read, it is important to activity prior knowledge and perhaps even use graphic organizers while reading so they can better summarize their findings (Miller & Veatch, 2011).
- The first time students complete this activity, much model is needed. Therefore, discuss a smaller section with students and as a class write a short summary. This summary should include a topic sentence, significant details, and a conclusion sentence.
- According to Pearson (1985), moving students to guided and independent practice after modeling is quite successful.
Science Example
Use the written summary method with scaffolding to help students organize thoughts, ideas, and successfully summarize for short sections of text.
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Social Studies Example
Use the written summary method with scaffolding to help students organize thoughts, ideas, and successfully summarize for larger text sections.
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The above video shows a great example of how to summarize called "Sum it Up for $2.00". This method simply uses key words from a text to summarize.
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The above shows a teacher implementing the written summary strategy. Students use "gist" words (key words) from the text to help guide their summary. The teacher provides a great example of how to model and guide the process while actively engaging the students. This process includes all the important components needed for a written summary of text.
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Writing Component
- One of the middle school writing standards for common core states "Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content."
- A written summary of text is a great way to organize thoughts to convey ideas. This includes discerning between more important and less important information. Also, Vacca and Vacca (2008, pp. 310) claim that in order to write summaries effectively, students must be able to "discern and analyze text structure".
- Therefore, a written summary is a great way to cover the common core standard above, because a summary is an effective way to convey information by way of correct selection, organization, and analysis of text.